News

TUCKER, Ga. -- Thousands of parents in DeKalb County are waiting to find out how their children's schools will fare under a redistricting plan being released by the interim superintendent Monday night.

Insiders said it's unlikely that Sup't. Ramona Tyson will back either of the two plans that have been debated for weeks.

Instead, she's expected to present some sort of combination of the Centralized Plan and Decentralized Plan that includes input from weeks of community meetings and public surveys.

"I think the consultants and the administration and the superintendent have taken those comments into advisement and have designed an alternative plan or plans," said School Board Member Donna Edler.

DECATUR -- A DeKalb County State Court Judge has stepped down and agreed to never serve on the bench in Georgia again after allegations of judicial misconduct.

Judge Barbara J. Mobley submitted and Gov. Nathan Deal accepted her letter of resignation on Friday, effective immediately, according to the terms of a deal with the Judicial Qualifications Commission, which began investigating her in April.

The investigation was sparked by a laundry list of complaints filed by court personnel.

DECATUR, GA -- It's a school district that has had its brushes with scandal -- so the presence of SACS investigators at the central office of the DeKalb County school system isn't a big surprise to parents like Marilyn Vaudran, whose daughter is a student at Laurel Ridge Elementary.

"We had issues last year already with the superintendent," Vaudran said. "So I'm not surprised."

DECATUR, GA -- DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown says 127 Sheriff's Deputies and Detention Officers, 15 percent of the workforce, face a two-day suspension without pay for not making it to work during last week's crippling snowstorm.

DeKalb Sheriff Thomas Brown has no sympathy for the no-shows.

"Anytime you are dealing with public safety employees and emergency workers, they are expected to go toward the danger and not away from the danger," Brown said. "They should have planned by having some additional clothes, then looked at their wives, husbands or whomever to say 'I will see you in two days. I have to go and do what I am paid to do to protect the public'."

DEKALB COUNTY, GA -- The DeKalb County School Board voted 6-3 Tuesday to give Interim DeKalb County School Superintendent Ramona Tyson a $73,000 raise.

She had been working at her old Deputy Superintendent's salary of $165,000 since taking over for Superintendent Crawford Lewis last February. He was suspended, then fired after being charged with corruption.

Lewis' salary was $255,000 when he left. Tyson's new salary will be $238,000.

When the school board initially announced the terms of Tyson's new contract in December, some parents were outraged that the school system would even think of such a move when it's $50 million in the red. Public hearings were held before the school board's final vote Tuesday.

HIALEAH, FL -- A teenage girl who ran away from her South Florida home on Sunday, Jan. 9 may be traveling through Georgia.

Mailyn Fernandez, 17, was last seen at approximately 1:00 a.m. in her hometown of Hialeah. She is believed to be traveling to Mississippi to meet a man known only as "Blaze," who she met on the Internet.

Mailyn may be on a Greyhound bus somewhere between Tifton, Georgia and Atlanta. She has been speaking with her mother on the phone since she left.

Mailyn is described as 5'6" and 130 pounds with medium length black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone who has seen Mailyn or has information about her disappearance is asked to call Hialeah Police at 305-687-2525.

ATLANTA -- MARTA is operating on a limited schedule today with only 12 routes running because of icy conditions on roads throughout the Atlanta area.

Service will run until 1:30 a.m., but riders should expect delays on all routes.

Rail service will remain on a Saturday-Sunday schedule ending at 12:30 a.m.

As for what the future holds, MARTA's deputy GM tells 11Alive's Matt Pearl they expect to be running on a full weekday schedule by Tuesday, Jan. 18. They expect to run at a normal weekend schedule -- at least for the rail service -- from now until that date. At this point, much of the bus service depends on the roads.